Bringing Life to the Score is a project co-created by the Fondation des États-Unis (FEU) in collaboration with Carol Robinson (FEU alumna) and Ensemble Calliopée (in artistic residency since 2017) around today’s musical creation. It offers an encounter between American composers in residence at the FEU and three professional musicians in a spirit of intergenerational and intercultural sharing and exchange.
On one hand, the international professional experience of Carol Robinson, Karine Lethiec and Diana Ligeti in the creation of chamber music offers valuable know-how in the realization of the young composer’s works, from the writing phase to the elaboration of the musical pieces. On the other hand, the project has the particularity of “playing together” in “shared” musical works, mixing performers and creators, and thus offering the possibility of “live” answers to any question about the instrumental parts, by working on the specificities inherent to the writing of a “gesture”, this parameter of creation, this link between imaginary and instrumental realization, between thought and symbol on the score.
By highlighting the originality of the approach of the American composers and performers, this project participates in the melting pot of creativity that is the FEU and, in Ensemble Calliopée’s approach of transmission and commitment to today’s creation, allowing the meeting of different generations of artists from very different backgrounds who unite their energy for the realization of a common artistic goal.
Practical Information
Date : April 21 | Time : 7:30PM | Facebook event
Registration closes on Thursday, April 21 at 7:00 pm. If you were not able to register, you can come to the entrance and we will let you in according to the remaining places.
COVID: Wearing a mask is not mandatory, however it is strongly recommended. Please use the hydroalcoholic gel at your disposal.
The Program
Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)
Sonate pour flute, alto et harpe
Thomaz Tavares, flute
Karine Lethiec, viola
Marcel Cara, harp
Simon Frisch (1990)
Dialogue pour flûte, alto et harpe en regard de la Sonate de Claude Debussy
Thomaz Tavares, flute
Karine Lethiec, viola
Marcel Cara, harp
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Sonate pour flute, alto et harpe
Carol Robinson (1956)
Air de l’épouse, Mélodie de l’épouse pour soprano et violoncelle
Sarah Grace Graves, soprano
Diana Ligeti, cello
Sarah Grace Graves (1995)
Howl alive pour voix et clarinette basse
Sarah Grace Graves, soprano
Carol Robinson, bass clarinet
Thomas Gurin (1995)
Rythmes verticaux pour quatuor à cordes
Dhyani Heath, violin
Aron Frank, violin
Karine Lethiec, viola
Diana Ligeti, cello
Dhyani Heath (1994)
Suite pour 2 violons et alto
Dhyani Heath, violin
Susila Heath, violin
Karine Lethiec, viola
Sergio Herrera (1995)
Quatuor à cordes
Dhyani Heath, violin
Aron Frank, violin
Karine Lethiec, viola
Diana Ligeti, cello
Aron Frank (1989)
Au bois dormant pour voix et piano d’après un poème de Paul Valéry
Solange Adamson, soprano
Aron Frank, piano
Ensemble Calliopée
Founded in 1999, Ensemble Calliopée is a chamber music ensemble, varying in size from two to ten musicians. The Ensemble’s artistic director, Karine Lethiec, brings together artists of international talent who combine their skills as soloists and chamber musicians. In addition to sharing chamber music masterpieces from the classics to the contemporary, the Ensemble is committed to researching new repertoires from the past and present and invests in sharing them with all audiences. They have commissioned numerous contemporary works. Ensemble Calliopée’s approach is above all to make music accessible to everyone by focusing on historical pieces, a curiosity for contemporary composition, and an original and broadened view of the artistic, historical or scientific context as well as contemporary questions.
The Ensemble also collaborates with artists and personalities from other art forms and performs on national and international stages, in prestigious venues, and festivals. In addition, Ensemble Calliopée implements artistic and educational projects within the framework of medium or long-term partnerships that it forges with institutions, teams and diverse audiences (residencies at the Museum of National Archaeology in May 2018, in Val-d’Oise since 2016, at the University of Orléans and its Le Bouillon Théâtre since 2016, at the Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux from 2011 to 2018, at the Fondation des États-Unis since 2017).
In 2017, the Ensemble Calliopée and the Fondation des États-Unis decided to join forces to promote their common history, both tangible and intangible, born of exchanges between Europe and the United States, with the aim of playing for diverse audiences. In 2021, Ensemble Calliopée created three new musical programs: CosmoSono – Les ondes gravitationnelles with astrophysicist Peter Wolf, Music and Muses – La plus vieille chanson du monde and, Une Pierre raconte – Hommage à la dalle ornée de Saint-Bélec, which was broadcast on TV78, and is available on YouTube.
Karine Lethiec is recognized today for her high standards and her artistic range, which makes her a sought-after musician, particularly for her expertise in chamber music and her conception of interdisciplinary programs. She holds degrees in violin, viola, and chamber music from the conservatories of Lyon, Paris, Geneva, and Bern. She is a prizewinner of the Tertis International Competition and of the Fondation Banque Populaire. She teaches viola at the Conservatoire de la Ville de Paris (Paris 8) and was a student advisor from 2014 to 2018. Her musical travels have taken her from Mozart (complete recording of the quintets with the Stradivari Quartet) to contemporary creation (more than a hundred premieres). Karine Lethiec continues to defend musical creation through commissions and performances of works by Betsy Jolas, Thierry Pécou, Philippe Schoeler, Benoît Menut, Philippe Hersant, Graciane Finzi… (Monographic CD released by ARION in November 2021). She has recorded́ Kryštof Mařatka’s concerto Astrophonia with the Radio-France Philharmonic Orchestra (France Musique).
In addition, she is very involved in the democratization of music through artistic education adapted to all audiences. Artistic director and viola player of the Ensemble Calliopée since 1999, she proposes programming that favors interdisciplinary projects in the fields of Fine Arts, History, Archaeology and Science, in concert or in audiovisual creations available on the YouTube channel of Ensemble Calliopée.
Following her musical studies in Romania, Diana Ligeti pursued a 3rd cycle at the CNSM in Paris in the classes of Klaus Heitz (cello) and Christian Ivaldi (chamber music). She attended numerous cello and chamber music master classes with Yo Yo Ma, Janos Starker, Siegfried Palm, Radu Aldulescu, Michel Strauss, Sigmund Nissel… Noticed by Lord Yehudi Menuhin, she perfected her skills at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad, Switzerland.
Diana Ligeti has a long experience as a soloist and chamber musician and plays all over the world with prestigious partners such as Martha Argerich, Boris Berezovsky, Bruno Giuranna, Christian Ivaldi, Philippe Entremont, Chang-Cook Kim, etc. She is a member of Musique oblique, Ensemble Calliopée, Le Cercle and Trio Georges Sand. Diana Ligeti has recorded for Arion, Polymnies, Leman classics, Japan Chamber Music Foundation, Alphae, Warner… Diana Ligeti is a professor at the CNSMD of Paris, at the CRR of Rueil-Malmaison and teaches at the American Art Schools of Fontainebleau. She regularly gives master classes around the world. In March 2018, Diana Ligeti was appointed director of the American Schools of Art in Fontainebleau.
The Composers
To say that Carol Robinson is a Franco-American clarinetist and composer is perhaps too restrictive to describe her experience and passion. Trained as a classical clarinetist, she graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory before continuing her study of contemporary music in Paris thanks to a H. H. Woolley grant. Whether playing repertoire or experimental forms, she performs in major venues and festivals the world over (Festival d’Automne, MaerzMuzik, Archipel, RomaEuropa, Wien Modern, CTM Berlin, Geometry of Now, Crossing the Line, Huddersfield…), and works closely with musicians from a wide stylistic spectrum. A fervent improviser, she prefers the most open musical situations and regularly collaborates with choreographers, video artists and photographers.
Author of over sixty works, she began composing by writing music theater pieces. She has received commissions from institutions such as Radio France and the French Ministry of Culture, in addition to numerous ensembles and international festivals. She often composes pieces that combine acoustic instruments with electronics. Three of these pieces (Nacarat for electric guitar, Black on Green for double bass and Les si doux redoux for basset horn) will soon be released on MODE RECORDS.
Robinson’s recent discography reflects the breadth of her work. Beyond her compositions like Billows or Laima for clarinets and live electronics, or Cross-Currents an unending aleatoric mix composed with Cathy Milliken, there are award winning monographic recordings of major twentieth century composers (Giacinto Scelsi, Luigi Nono, Morton Feldman, Luciano Berio, Eliane Radigue, Phill Niblock, Jürg Frey…) as well as classical music, jazz or alternative rock for various labels.
Aron Frank is an award-winning composer of classical music and film scores, as well as a violinist and music educator. A graduate of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, he has studied composition with Claude Baker, Sven-David Sandström, Aron Travers, Don Freund and P. Q. Phan, film scoring with Larry Groupé and violin with Federico Agostini. The films he has composed for have been screened at the Montclair Film Festival in New Jersey (Jury Prize) and at the Independent’s “Project Involove” in Los Angeles. His compositions have been performed in the United States, Latin America, and Europe, at the Tanglewood Music Institute, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University, and the Music Educators National Conference among others. Aron is the recipient of the Harriet Hale Woolley Fellowship and is an Artist-in-Residence at the Fondation des États-Unis for the academic year 2021-2022, during which time he will prepare for the Diplôme Supérieur in Composition and Film Composition at the École Normale de Musique de Paris Alfred Cortot.
Simon Frisch is a composer and recipient of a 2020-2021 Fulbright-Harriet Hale Woolley Fellowship. During his residency at the Fondation des États-Unis, he aims to compose a song cycle for period instruments that explores the cultural legacy of Anne de Bretagne, Queen of France from 1491 to 1514. He is also a resident scholar at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique where he is studying the politics of musical practice at the court of Anne de Bretagne. Some of his recent projects include “The Body Untied” for soloists and baroque chamber orchestra (presented in New York by, among others, Région Bretagne, and lightbox gallery in collaboration with multimedia artist Rachel Libeskind), and “Sandglass Vespers” for chamber orchestra presented at Alice Tully Hall (with Joel Sachs and the New Juilliard Ensemble), as part of residencies and studies at the Banff Arts Centre and Wildacres. An advocate for mediation and emerging creative voices in music, Simon has organized a series of summer chamber music concerts in the Ille-et-Vilaine/Côtes-d’Armor regions of Bretagne, programming dozens of European and world premieres by various young composers in collaboration with local non-profit organizations. These concerts, praised by Le Télégramme, Ouest France and Bretagne Actuelle, have promoted creative and cultural heritage projects in many disciplines, including architecture and sculpture. He is currently a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at the Juilliard School, where he completed his graduate degree with Robert Beaser.
Sarah Grace Graves is a composer and singer of experimental music living in Paris. Her music contextualizes the voice and instrument within the internal landscape of the performer: emotions, physical sensations, and sense memory. In March 2021, her experimental vocal recital Songs from the Chalet was released as part of Divertimento Ensemble’s Young Performers on Digital Stage concert series. In it, Graves performs her own compositions as well as selections from Erin Gee’s Mouthpiece series and Giacinto Scelsi’s Canti del Capricorno. She has participated in numerous festivals including Voix Nouvelles Academy at Royaumont, Northwestern University New Music Conference, Westben Performer-Composer Residency, IlSuono Contemporary Music Week, Nief-Norf Summer Festival, and Estalagem da Ponta do Sol Residency for contemporary music and electronics. She performs Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Stimmung with the Italian contemporary vocal ensemble Fragmente and is a founding member of Mockingbird and Magpie, an experimental voice/cello duo with Toronto composer and cellist Cory Harper-Latkovich. Sarah Grace holds a Master of Arts in composition from UC Berkeley and a Bachelor of Music in composition from Rice University. From 2021-2022, Sarah Grace will be a Harriet Hale Woolley Fellow at the Fondation des États-Unis in Paris. She is studying voice with Nicholas Isherwood.
Tom Gurin is a composer recipient of the Harriet Hale Woolley Fullbright Fellowship for the 2021-2022 academic year. He graduated from Yale University with Honors in Composition and received the Paul H. and Brigitte P. Fry Award for excellence. His music has been performed at the highSCORE New Music Festival in Pavia, Italy, the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival at the Mannes School of Music in New York, the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp among others. The National Youth Orchestra of China, the Yale Symphony Orchestra and other ensembles have previewed his compositions. He is a former member of the Belgian American Educational Foundation and graduated from the Belgian Royal Carillon School. Recent awards include previews by the Sonus Foundation in Budapest, the Campanae Lovanienses in Leuven, and the Guilde des Carillonneurs in North America. The latter awarded him the Johan Franco Composition Award 2021. He is currently studying composition at the École Normale de Musique de Paris.
Sergio Herrera is a composer-guitarist currently based in Paris. He received his B.M. in Music Composition and Theory from Florida State University, where he studied composition with Dr. Clifton Callender and jazz theory and arranging with Bill Peterson. While at Florida State, Sergio received both the Presser Fellowship and the David Ward-Steinman Award in Composition. He has written for a wide variety of ensembles ranging from chamber to big band jazz. Distinguished by an ever-evolving rhythmic vitality, Sergio’s music synthesizes elements of jazz and Latin American music to create a personal and unique compositional voice. Sergio has participated in festivals such as the TALIS music festival in Switzerland and the EAMA Nadia Boulanger Academy in Paris, where he collaborated with composers Miguel del Aguila and David Conte. Sergio was awarded the Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship from the Fondation des États-Unis for the 2018-2019 academic year. He is currently studying harmony and counterpoint with Stephane Delplace at the Schola Cantorum in Paris. Sergio was the last student of renowned composer and pedagogue Narcís Bonet.
The FEU Musicians
Canadian soprano Solange Adamson is a Harriet Hale Woolley Scholar and a student at the École Normale de Paris. She performs regularly in concerts at the Fondation des États-Unis and Salle Cortot and has recently sung at the Vienna Volksliedwerk and the Centennial Festival of the American Schools of the Arts in Fontainebleau. Her performances include the Abbess in Puccini’s Suor Angelica with the Center for Opera Studies in Italy, Dardano in Handel’s Amadigi with Opera UCLA, Michaela in Carmen at the École Normale de Musique, and the world premieres of Juana by Carla Lucero and The Emperor’s New Clothes by Nicki Sohn. Solange is a graduate of ENMP and UCLA where she studied with Olga Toporkova and Vladimir Chernov.
Born in 1994 in New York City, American-Javanese violinist Dhyani Heath has performed recitals in France, the United States, Canada, Austria, and the United Kingdom. She performed as a soloist with the American Romantics in 2017 and 2018, as well as with the Chamber Orchestra of Galicia in 2016. After studying at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and as a scholarship student at the Yale School of Music, she is completing her studies at the CNSMDP as a graduate artist and received a Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship for the 2021-2022 academic year.
Flutist Thomaz Tavares Paes was hailed by the Virginia Gazette as a “refined performer with a pure and direct sound […] who embraces the lyrical and virtuosic demands of the work.” Tavares was a recipient of the 2019-2020 Harriet Hale Woolley Fellowship, during which he explored the French Belle Epoque repertoire and the flute music of composer Yuko Uebayashi. After a successful internship with the Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle Europe, he continues to perform, record, and tour with them under the direction of Nicolas Krauze. In 2019, Thomaz graduated with a Superior Performance Diploma with unanimous jury approval. A native New Yorker later raised in Brazil, Thomaz Tavares graduated from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree in flute performance under the tutelage of Thomas Robertello on a Premier Young Artist scholarship and then moved to Paris to study with international soloist Jean Ferrandis. Thomaz has performed as a soloist at festivals in Paris, Halle (Germany), Tignes, Sarajevo (Bosnia), Dartington (England), and has given numerous recitals throughout France and the United States.
Guest musicians
Trained at the CNSMDP with Isabelle Moretti and Germaine Lorenzini, Marcel Cara (born in 1996) belongs to the finest tradition of the French Harp School: his playing, full of contours and colors, immediately attracts attention. From orchestras to recitals, he integrates all facets of the instrument. Chamber music is a major part of his activity, in collaboration with musicians such as Amaury Coeytaux, Adrien la Marca, Philippe Bernold, etc., or in the Duo Éos that he forms with cellist Stéphanie Huang. He has also performed as a soloist with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris in Claude Debussy’s Danses and Bruno Mantovani’s concerto and with the Orchestre de Picardie conducted by Arie Van Beek. In residence at the Cité des Arts de Paris from 2018 to 2020, he was a prizewinner at the Hong Kong Harp Contest, the Young Concert Audition in New York, as well as a scholarship winner of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Marcel Cara is committed to exploring harp repertoire; he also contributes to its expansion by signing remarkable transcriptions.
Susila Heath is an exceptional Javanese American violinist who excels in solo and chamber music repertoire. Born in the United States in 1999, she began studying the violin at the age of seven with Pavel Feldman. At eleven, she moved to Europe to study at the prestigious Mozarteum University in Salzburg. Susila is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in violin performance there, with Harald Herzl. An impassioned chamber musician, she studied at the Sándor Végh Chamber Music Institute with Thomas Riebl, members of the Minetti and Hagen Quartets. With her sisters Dhyani and Riana Heath, she founded Eucharis Strings, which is dedicated to performing works by composers from around the world. In 2016, she was invited to participate in the chamber music project Mit Musik Miteinander at the Kronberg Academy in Germany. She won numerous first prizes at National Competitions and was awarded first prize at the International Grand Prize Virtuoso Competition, which led her to perform at the Royal Albert Hall. In 2015 and 2016, she received first chamber music and solo prizes from the Prima la musica competition. She regularly participates in concerts in Vienna, Salzburg, and Passau with the Salzburger Landesjugendorchester and has performed as a soloist with the Symphonie Orchester des Musikgymnasiums Salzburg. From 2015 to 2018, Susila played a Derazey violin, which was loaned to her by the Ernst Alexander Maier Memorial Fund. She is now studying with Prof. Michaël Hentz at the CNSMDP as part of ERASMUS.